The First Flame
by Eidetiker for Melodies
Summary: Why speak the truth, when you can lie? Why walk the earth, if you can fly? Why make a brave face, to later cry? Why choose to live, when you must die? Dissonant heartbeats echo in Eden, and slowly, cracks appear in the walls of the Garden of Ignorance.
1. Prologue

The world wavered before my eyes before parting like a thunderstorm. It... was the most beautiful, horrifying thing I had ever seen. Ten thousand lights in as many flickering shades shone down from the night sky, among them all a pale sphere of yellow light, calmly gazing down upon the lands and casting it in it's glow.

The Fifth.

It had, at long last, come.

With a flickering rush of barely displaced air, my most trusted lieutenant appeared at my side.

"Namikaze-isshou! The squads await your orders!"

I paused for a moment, considering the situation. I had access to all twenty three of Terra's remaining Tenma Reactors, but-

This _thing_ had subverted forty six thousand more.

With a bitter smile, I answered him.

"We have no chance of victory as it stands, Yakushi... We have to retreat. Again."

"But sir- with the number of injuries you've suffered this time around-!"

"I'll most likely die. Yes. Yakushi, with our current resources, do you honestly think I'd waste our lives... On _that_?"

We both stared up at the enormous, pale yellow orb.

Slowly, ever so slowly, it began to blink.

It wasn't the moon.

It was an eye.

The night sky was covered in ten thousand eyes, and the air vibrated deeply with the thrumming reverberations of nearly as many hearts.

"No. Not a chance."

"Then come, Yakushi. Issue the order. And let not a single man unprepared throw himself into the depths of hell."

I turned, and ran into the Prior Domain of Konoha, an array of tunnels carved out by the last survivors of a distant apocalypse and it madness, they who had sought desperately to undo the tragedy of their past, and nearly succeeded. Deep, deep in those underground chambers slumbered a five hundred year old set of rings covered in, or perhaps made of seals. When fed by a paradox, they called forth a being unlike any other.

"Kyuubi."

"I am here, Namikaze," came the voice from the shadows. A tall, thin man stepped out from them, red hair practically glowing with light.

"We go. One last time."

"As you wish."

With a mighty flare of Ja Chakra, the power of Contradiction, the rings screamed to life, incandescent flames burning at the very fabric of reality itself.

A blurred face appeared in the centre, horrible smile stitched into it by the perfect needlework of a madman.

"Itsugami. I have one last wish."

"And it shall be granted, oh Sower of Discord. It shall be granted."

Time. itself. _**burned**_.

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><p>Isshou: General (military)<p>

Itsugami: A god

Ja: Evil, perverted (in the sense of wrong, rather than the sense of licentious)


	2. Chapter Zero: My name is!

**Chapter Zero: My name is...!**

* * *

><p>Sunlight in the morning. Four faces carved into the side of a mountain, the greatest heroes of the land looking down upon that which they had sworn their lives to protect. What they see: Green-leaved trees interspersed with red-painted roofs.<p>

This is _Konohagakure no Sato_, the Village Hidden in Leaves. My home.

I wake up in the morning, and see this scene through my window. It inspires me to try my hardest as well. After getting dressed, six days out of seven I leap across the branches and rooftops, hurtling through the air towards a building almost hidden under the trees. It has no name, but we who were accepted there call it the Academy. It takes one day a week more than civilians go to school.

I could care less. I want to do more with my life than make a living. I have a dream.

After arriving, I sit down in class, and begin studying. How to read the ground. How to channel chakra. How to notice suspicious things. How to read the Three Great Scripts. How to hold, aim, and throw Shuriken and Kunai. How to use your hand seals in the most fluid, natural way possible. How to fight. How to kill, and if you must die, how to take as many of the enemy as possible with you.

In short, I go there to learn one lesson that can't be taught. How to be a ninja. The Will of Fire flows in my veins.

After the lessons are finished for the day, I go and grab a bite for dinner at Ichiraku Ramen. The man there and his daughter are like the family I've never had. When I was alone, they gave me warmth. When I was destitute, they made sure I was well fed. When I was forced from the orphanage, they gave me shelter.

I eat there every day, even if it means I have no heat in winter. It's the least I can do, for a debt I can never repay.

On some nights, I make a detour on the way home, and walk into the most fortified building in the village. Casually. I continue up, up, up, until finally, on the second to last floor, I enter the worn door of an office that has existed since before this village had a name. A 68 year old man sits at a desk at the far end of the room. I think of him as the grandfather I never had.

To the eyes of the unaware, he looks completely unimpressive.

This, as are so many things in my world, **is a lie**.

He is the embodiment of everything I strive for, and all that it implies.

My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I am _shinobi_. My dream is to become the Shadow of Flame.

And today, at long last, I will take the first step in achieving it.

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><p>Eien: I tried to convey Naruto's intensity with this chapter. Most think of him as something of a goofy screw-off in canon, but I think that's a little bit too shallow... At least until the timeskip. Seriously, in three years, all he learns is a less-controlled jinchuuriki mode? Yeah, dunno about goofy, but post-timeskip canon-Naruto is most definitely a screw-off.<p>

If you're wondering when what you read in the previous chapter will come into play, the answer is that I can't tell you just yet. As for where the story goes next, expect an _accelerated _runthrough of something that mostly resembles canon until the second stage of the chuunin exams, which should be reached by the second or third chapter. That's where the plot will kick into high gear, though what I write before that will also be pretty important to the story, of course.

**If you read this, if you like it, if you hate it, please leave a review.** Just one per chapter. Tell me what I'm doing right, tell me what I'm doing wrong, but tell me SOMETHING of what you thought about the story. I'm not going to be one of those total assholes who withholds completed chapters over not getting reviews, but **your reviews are important to increase the quality of my writing**. When my quality gets higher, my story becomes more enjoyable to read! I've enabled anonymous reviews, so **you don't even have to have an account on this site to leave one**! Just click the button below this note to begin!

Thanks!


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